In a video interview, Smarr , a professor at the University of California-San Diego, predicts that revolutionary innovation in medical imaging is on the horizon, thanks to advancing sensors and computer technology, ”which came of things like the gaming industry.”

Smarr’s prototype consists of a “cave” composed of massive HD screens placed in a square with additional screens above angled toward the floor. These displays are linked to 18 gaming PCs, creating a graphics-processing goliath.

Bowden tried the system out, with a sensor placed on his forehead to help the computer track his eyes. “I felt as if I could reach out and touch the wrinkled contours of his intestines and arteries,” he writes.

Smarr believes this technology will change the nature of medical diagnosis by eventually creating a fully interactive 3D model of a person’s internal components. This would allow us easily inspect specific parts of organs.

This isn’t the first time the medical field has taken advantage of gaming’s horsepower. Since 2007, innovations in graphical hardware have also been used to speed up scientific computations. Graphics processing units, or GPUs, are built from that start to handle hundreds of arithmetic functions and complex processes, making them ideal for the advanced calculations of both fields.